


blinding lights

by unwritten92



Category: Midnight Poppy Land (Webcomic)
Genre: Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Smut, the weeknd inspired
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:47:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23549386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwritten92/pseuds/unwritten92
Summary: They were childhood friends. He taught her how to ride a bike, and punch assholes in the face. She was his Bobby girl, who took care of him after Mr. Balthuman’s cruel punishments. Little hamster girl, whom he’d been in love with all his life. She left to pursue her dreams, and he’d stayed, chained back. Now she’s here, in front of him, crying and hurt, because her piece of shit fiancé had cheated on her, and she had nowhere to go.
Relationships: Tora and Poppy, Tora/Poppy
Comments: 30
Kudos: 108





	1. i sin city's cold and empty

i. sin city’s cold and empty

He doesn’t know how many offers to go back to some girl’s place he’s received tonight. All he wants to do is take a fucking shower and sleep, not follow some silicone twit back home.

He flicks the cigarette’s butt and stands, leaving the latest stripper to stumble onto the couch without him to clutch at. The empty feeling creeps in, the void no one can fill convinces him to head back to Quincey’s apartment. 

His job at Miracle is done.

He’s settling down on the couch ready to play when the doorbell rings, Quincey looks at him and shrugs then goes to open the door. The next thing Tora hears makes his heart drop to his stomach.

“He cheated on me,” it’s Poppy, crying, he hates it when she cries. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

Quincey tuts sympathetically and ushers her in, Tora gets up and faces her.

When Poppy sees him her breath catches, and when he opens his arms to her she drops everything and walks into them.

She looks a mess and the only thing that keeps him from going out to rip her fiancé’s throat out is the precious girl he’s holding.

As soon as she tires herself out, he’s going hunting.


	2. ii no one’s around to judge me, part i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> greetings, boys and girls! I hope you enjoy this next installment. We get to see a little into the relationship between Tora and Poppy (affection wise). Next chapter is already written out!

ii. no one’s around to judge me, part i

It was agreed Tora would accompany Poppy to her ex’s apartment to pick up her belongings. Tora was intimidating enough that her ex wouldn’t try anything.

Like try to convince her to stay.

Fuck him. 

As much as Tora had been tempted to kill the scum who’d hurt Poppy, she’d stayed up until very early in the morning, resulting in a lack of sleep for everyone in the apartment. 

Including Quincey, who’d mothered her since she sat on the sofa. 

Later, the next afternoon, after they’d gotten some sleep, Quincey had let Poppy know that under no circumstances was she going back to the apartment she shared with Julri, but that she needed to pick up her stuff. 

She wasn’t to go alone. Tora had volunteered to go with her, he wanted to keep an eye on her, and dissuade the piece of shit fiancé from acting up. 

They arrive a little after the sun has set, and it is to no one’s surprise that some unknown girl opens the door when they knock.

Tora scowls.

The blonde woman barely glances at Poppy, but gapes at him. 

“Let me through.” Poppy tries but is ignored, so Tora grasps the door and pushes, this makes the blonde woman fall back and allows for Poppy to go inside. 

Coming around the kitchenette is the piece of shit, Tora closes the front door barely stopping himself from slamming it, or the scum’s head against it, and follows Poppy to her room. 

“Poppy what are you doing?! What kind of people are you getting involved with?!” Julri is panicked but Poppy turns and takes off her engagement ring, placing it on the vanity.

“The best kind.”

She pauses in the bedroom; she looks lost and it punches Tora in the gut.

A caress of his finger down her cheek, a pinch of her chin and the soft smile and dimple he reserves for her and she’s bolstered to finish her packing.

Julri tries to say something but Tora cuts him off, “I’ll carry whatever you need. Anything you can’t take now, I can send some of the boys to get later.”

She’s walking out the front door with her bag of trinkets, the rest she had thrown into a box that Tora lifts to carry.

Tora is stepping out after her when he hears the chick mock Poppy, “How the hell did that crybaby get with that hunk?”

The scathing glare he sends the couple nearly makes them pass out.

“Watch your back and her mouth, motherfucker.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I’m going to challenge myself these next two weeks. I finished this chapter on the plane from New Jersey to my home country. 
> 
> Now I have to quarantine for two weeks in a small room, before I can get out to be with my family. It’s been a difficult couple of weeks, as I live by myself (kind of – I have a roommate, but that’s another story) and being alone has been messing with my head. 
> 
> I made the decision to go back home where all my family is while this even continues. However, I made this decision knowing I would have to be apart from my family for a little while but still be near them. It’ll be a little boring, so I will challenge myself to write and post one chapter per day while I’m quarantined. 
> 
> Lilydusk’s art has helped me these past few days, to kind of immerse myself in another world and forget what’s been going on. Hopefully, this short (silly) story will help tide you over while we stay home and safe (if going a little crazy). 
> 
> On that short essay, I want you the reader to keep a countdown, if only to help remind me that I need to write and post! Just drop by the comments and countdown! 14 chapters total!


	3. iii no one's around to judge me, part ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, baby girls, and baby boys! Third chapter out! This one will give you an insight on Tora and Poppy’s history.

iii. no one’s around to judge me, part ii

Years ago, before Poppy had left for college, before they’d drifted apart in high school, when they’d been a pair of knobby kneed kids, Tora had taught her how to fight.

Not the type of fighting that he did on an almost daily basis, but the self-defense kind.

How to dodge, how to kick and punch, how to escape from a captor twice her size. 

As they grew older, their trips to the old gym became a bonding experience, but it dwindled to odd visits here and there as he went up in ranks and Poppy started working towards her dreams of becoming an editor. 

Then they just stopped and they drifted away.

Literally and figuratively.

It’s the old gym where he detours and breaks Poppy out from her pensive stare out the window.

“Ernie’s?,” she glances at him and then back, “it’s still open?” 

“Yeah Bobby girl, still up and running,” Tora goes around to open her door, “and just what we both need tonight.”

It’s the same old crap building, but they both relax when they go in. Crappy rock music plays on old speakers, and there are one or two guys in the gym.

Tora pulls Poppy closer to him by her waist. He can’t help but notice that his palm nearly cradles the small of her back completely.

Poppy looks down at his warm touch, and feels a bolt of heat travel through her. He’s so big, it’s always intimidated her, never scared, it had just always made her feel tiny and feminine.

She’s always liked it.

“You remember how to do this, right?” Even as he asks he’s already taking up her hands and binding her knuckles with a white strip of bandage. 

He’s so close to her she can feel his body heat, his scent makes her dizzy and kind of fuzzy.

She can’t believe what she’s thinking and feeling when she’s just literally left a cheating fiancé behind.

But, it’s always been this way with Tora. No matter what is happening or who is around, her thoughts are always on him if he’s nearby.

Even if she’s the farthest thing from his mind.

Her thoughts turn dark, the very reason why she had run away with her tail tucked between her legs, and settled with the first “nice” guy she’d found.

Trying to forget, she thinks amused, is very hard when the person you’re trying to forget is Tora. 

The Tiger of Ares Street. 

She never should have left. Even if she festered in heart break and unrequited love. 

Tora stands up and startles her from the dark turn her mind had taken.

“I think we both need to punch something,” he’s binding his hands and for Poppy it’s a study of the perfect male form to watch him do anything, “and I don’t doubt you’d like to punch that fucker’s ugly nose in.” 

He smirks at her, but she shakes her head.

“What I’d like to do is punch his dick off.” Poppy mutters, blushing when Tora’s eyebrows raise up and he chuckles. The sound travels to her toes.

“Atta girl.” He turns her around to face the bags, and pats her butt pushing her forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note, the chapters might be short and sometimes have jagged edges, it’s apparently my writing style. Sometimes I have a hard time getting what I want across so I cut things off in what feels like awkward ways. At least, that’s how it feels to me. This usually happens to me when I’m talking, so it translates to what I write down. I still hope you’re able to enjoy what I post though!


	4. iv cut me deep, these secrets and lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very short, but plot chapter. chapter title is from madness - ruelle

iv. cut me deep, these secrets and lies

Vincent Balthuman’s rise to the top came with many sacrifices and secrets. Secrets that were so bloody, violent, and wrong he’d never let anyone know.

His biggest and worst had been his nephew.

The nephew he trained to be no more than his attack dog.

His darkest secret.

He’d risen from the bloody back of his own older brother Raphael, taking everything that had ever belonged to him.

His men, his place in the organization, his son.

A necessary evil, as this place belonged to him, to lead to glory, as only he could.

It scared him, however, how every time he looked at Tora he would be looking at his dead brother.

The same eyes, the same build, the same soul.

He would see the same brother he had killed with his bare hands.

It terrified him.

Because if he was exactly like his father, then Vincent had a very limited amount of time before it was up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here some (kind of) plot. I have this head canon where Tora is actually Quincey’s cousin and the real heir to the Balthuman clan.

**Author's Note:**

> This short story was planned in one day, and completely outlined. All that's needed is to write it out, which hopefully I will be able to do. It's inspired by The Weeknd's Blinding Lights, and as you'll see all the chapters have a title with its lyrics, except the interludes.  
> I'm extremely happy that I got to discover this webcomic, as it had been a while since I'd actually enjoyed something as much as I enjoyed Lilydusk's Midnight Poppyland.


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